[B-Greek] John 3:13
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Feb 27 05:53:14 EST 2009
On Feb 27, 2009, at 12:10 AM, timothy mcmahon wrote:
>
> I know this sounds weird, but I run into all sorts of things.
>
> John 3:13 (Majority Text): OUDEIS ANABEBHKEN... EI MH hO EK TOU
> OURANOU KATABAS hO hUIOs TOU ANQRWPOU hO WN EN TW OURANW
>
> I guy I'm blogging with has a theological agenda which he wishes to
> facilitate by taking hO WN EN TW OURANW as referring to ANQRWPOU
> rather than to hUIOs. I explained to him the notion of case concord,
> but he came back with the Nominative of Appellation, citing
> Revelation 1:4, APO QEOU hO WN.
>
> Other than simple common sense, is there a solid reason to reject
> this in favor of understanding hO WN as referring to hUIOs?
A solid reason? No. I can readily imagine some fanciful compounded
propositions such as that (1) the same author composed both the gospel
of John and the book of Revelation, and (2) as Henry James in his
earlier years wrote a simpler and more instantly intelligible English
style (Portrait of a Lady, Daisy Miller), in his later years he
developed a much more complex, audaciously opaque style (The
Ambassadors, The Beast in the Jungle), so the author of John's gospel
experimented in his later years with phrases that are intelligible as
they are bizarre, such as APO hO WN KAI hO HN KAI hO ERCOMENOS. On the
other hand it is a commonly-held observation that the author of
Revelation was (a) not identical with the author of the gospel, and
(b) is notorious for employing solecisms -- expressions significantly
deviating from what seems to be standard Hellenistic Greek usage. Some
hold, however, to a variant view: the author of Revelation knew very
well that he was deviating from standard Hellenistic Greek usage and
did it deliberately for its striking effect on the reader/listener. My
own (more sober?) judgment is that we ought to understand the syntax
of John 3:13 in terms of the standard rather than of the exceptional
Hellenistic usage.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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